Post-September 11 Discourse: The Case of Iran in The New York Times

Abstract

This study examined how discursive strategies and related linguistic devices were employed by The New York Times (TNYT) to portray Iran after the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001, and how the media representation may have contributed to negative and/or positive outcomes in terms of geopolitical relations. The study also investigated how sociopolitical assumptions were manifest in producing news about Iran and how the news discourse continued to shape the power relations between the nation and the U.S. in particular, and the world at large. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a multidisciplinary approach, the analysis focused on 171 front-page TNYT news articles from 2001 until 2009. Analysis of the discursive strategies and linguistic means revealed that the news media depicted an overall negative picture of Iran after the September 11 or “9/11” attacks. The effect of this rather stereotypical construction of Iran in TNYT was that of the negative Other, a nation of people that formed part of George W. Bush’s contentious “axis of evil” thesis–malevolent, untrustworthy, violent, and a threat to world peace

Ideology through sentiment analysis: A changing perspective on Russia and Islam in NYT

“…While our findings about the increase in negativity are in accord with previous CDA literature on the representation of the ‘Other’ (cf. Alazzany and Wong, 2014; Hogan, 2006; Jahedi and Abdullah, 2012; Manan, 2009; Salama, 2011 on the representation of Islam in mass media post 9/11), our study crucially differs from the previous work in the methodology that we use. First, our analysis is diachronic, which allows us to show how the attitudes toward Russia and Islam change over time.…”

“…But this classification is often based on a subjective decision. For example, Jahedi and Abdullah’s (2012) study on the representation of Iran in NYT articles following the 9/11 attacks showed that Iran often occurs in contexts in which the words for violence, extremism, threat, and terror dominate the discourse (see Jahedi and Abdullah, 2012: 66, for more details). The authors concluded that these discursive strategies serve to represent the Iranian state as ‘the Other’.…”

“…The authors concluded that these discursive strategies serve to represent the Iranian state as ‘the Other’. While Jahedi and Abdullah’s (2012) study contributed to our understanding of the effects of 9/11, their analysis was based on a subjective evaluation of contexts and thus can be criticized for the lack of objectivity. Objective measures are needed to ensure that (1) all relevant words for positive/negative emotions are taken into consideration and the valence of the text is established based on their combined effects, and (2) words that are not truly positive/negative are not included in the analysis.…”

“…The terrorist attacks on 9/11 changed the Western perspective on Islam, and the discourse correlates of this process have been extensively studied from the CDA perspective (cf. Alazzany and Wong, 2014; Hogan, 2006; Jahedi and Abdullah, 2012; Manan, 2009; Salama, 2011). However, while most of the previous studies discuss the representation of Islam in the media in the aftermath of 9/11, our study focuses on the perspective change by analyzing how Islam is represented before and after 9/11 and comparing the two contexts (cf.…”

Elements of pathos and media framing as scientific discourse: A newspaper perspective on Rohingya crisis

“…The newspaper pays attention to full reporting of the day stories and maintains a good coverage of international news (Tikkanen, 2015). Like the other selected Pakistan and British newspapers, the editorial stands points of The New York Times have also been analyzed for their opinion on international issues (Izadi and Saghaye-Biria, 2007;Jahedi and Abdullah, 2012;Yousaf and Ali, 2012).…”